Getting Non-Camera-Roll Photos off iPhone 3G

[christy333]

My laptop monitor broke a couple months ago and I didn't have available harddrive space elsewhere to transfer my pictures, so I figured I'd get them off my iPhone later once I got a new computer. Got the new computer, and I feel like I have tried every program I can find online, and none of them will get any photos off my phone except for the camera roll photos. I don't give a darn about those. I want my 2 years' worth of digital camera photos. Is there another way to do this that I'm not aware of? Don't bother if it's a paid program. I already tried one (don't remember which one) and it didn't do what it said it would. Do you think if I took this in to an Apple store they could transfer them somehow for me, especially if I brought my own computer? Any help would be greatly appreciated - I miss my photos and emailing them (which would take ages for each one) just gives me thumbnails.

 

[Moi un Mouton]

One possibility is to jailbreak your phone and then you can access the phone's directories from your computer with SSH or WinSCP, and just manually copy the photo files across.

Hope that helps you.

 

[christy333]

One possibility is to jailbreak your phone and then you can access the phone's directories from your computer with SSH or WinSCP, and just manually copy the photo files across.

Hope that helps you.

Thanks for the tip, but that's something I'd like to avoid, especially since I've already upgraded to 2.2 which isn't jailbreak friendly, and I like 2.2. And I don't want to mess with it in that way. But thanks for the suggestion

 

[iphonemunkey]

??

Thanks for the tip, but that's something I'd like to avoid, especially since I've already upgraded to 2.2 which isn't jailbreak friendly, and I like 2.2. And I don't want to mess with it in that way. But thanks for the suggestion

2.2 not jailbreak friendly? yes it is. that way you could retrieve the photos then go back and restore to factory if you dont like the thought of being jb'd.

 

[christy333]

2.2 not jailbreak friendly? yes it is. that way you could retrieve the photos then go back and restore to factory if you dont like the thought of being jb'd.

Why are other people saying that 2.2 isn't good for jailbroken phones? Also, if I restore to factory settings, will my apps be transferred back onto my phone when I start over or will it sync the other way and delete them from iTunes since they are not on my phone? Finally, if I get the photos off, will they be full-sized or just thumbnails? They seem to be taking up the same amount of space on my phone as they did when they were on my computer. Oh and one last thing, how do I jailbreak my phone for free? Can I?

 

[Moi un Mouton]

Yes you can jailbreak your phone for free. Don't pay money to anyone who wants to charge you for this.

The best place to start is at iClarified: http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1558

They have really good clear instructions, on where to get the software you need and how to use it.

The photos will come off the phone full sized as you will be able to do a straightforward file copy from the phone to the PC.

PS You can just restore to original software with iTunes

 

[bradenwh]

Hehe

It's funny that NO ONE understands what he's actually trying to do. He wants to get photos off of his phone that AREN'T in his Camera Roll. You cannot do that with WinSCP. This is because your album photos aren't stored individually, they're stored in file called Photo Database on your phone. As far as I know, you can extract the photos from that.

 

[christy333]

It's funny that NO ONE understands what he's actually trying to do. He wants to get photos off of his phone that AREN'T in his Camera Roll. You cannot do that with WinSCP. This is because your album photos aren't stored individually, they're stored in file called Photo Database on your phone. As far as I know, you can extract the photos from that.

I'm a she, lol. But yes, that's what I want to do.

 

[Small White Car]

My laptop monitor broke a couple months ago and I didn't have available harddrive space elsewhere to transfer my pictures, so I figured I'd get them off my iPhone later once I got a new computer.

But the old files still exist, right? You should really try to recover those instead of going after the down-rezzed, smaller copies that get put on the iPhone.

I mean, you're going to a lot of trouble with this iPhone method, and you're getting bad copies for all your effort. Focus on the laptop and get the full-quality files back.

What kind of computers are the old and new ones? If they're both Macs with Firewire, this is very easy. If not, there might be something you can do with ethernet.

Or maybe take it somewhere, hook it up to an external monitor, and burn some DVDs while you have it hooked up.

Failing all that, take it to a repair shop and tell them to get all the files off it.

 

[christy333]

But the old files still exist, right? You should really try to recover those instead of going after the down-rezzed, smaller copies that get put on the iPhone.

I mean, you're going to a lot of trouble with this iPhone method, and you're getting bad copies for all your effort. Focus on the laptop and get the full-quality files back.

What kind of computers are the old and new ones? If they're both Macs with Firewire, this is very easy. If not, there might be something you can do with ethernet.

Or maybe take it somewhere, hook it up to an external monitor, and burn some DVDs while you have it hooked up.

Failing all that, take it to a repair shop and tell them to get all the files off it.

Well, considering the pictures are taking up as much room on my iPhone as they originally did on my computer, I thought I could get them back in full size, so please don't think I'm stupid.

As for burning DVDs...I have no idea what you mean. I have no access to the pictures manually. I don't know if you understood that. As for going to a repair shop, I was considering taking it to the Apple store.

 

[abijnk]

Well, considering the pictures are taking up as much room on my iPhone as they originally did on my computer, I thought I could get them back in full size, so please don't think I'm stupid.

As for burning DVDs...I have no idea what you mean. I have no access to the pictures manually. I don't know if you understood that. As for going to a repair shop, I was considering taking it to the Apple store.

Small White Car is right. You best bet is to work with the old computer. You said the display broke, so that implies that the rest of the computer is fully functional. In that case there is a lot you could do. Not the least of which is hooking it up to an external display. You could also try taking the hard drive out and putting it in an external enclosure then trying to get to the files from there.

Getting them off the phone is going to be near impossible. As you noted, most programs that claim to do this don't actually work. You could jailbreak and get the photo database from there, but that would be a chore to actually extract the photos.

 

[Small White Car]

Well, considering the pictures are taking up as much room on my iPhone as they originally did on my computer, I thought I could get them back in full size, so please don't think I'm stupid.

I'm not sure what to tell you. On my phone, I have 3,984 photos and it's taking up 2.5 GB of space on the phone.

That works out to rougly 650 KB per photo, on average. On my computer, all my photos are between 2 - 3 MB each. So it appears that the file size is being compressed down to more than half-sized on my phone. That's how it used to work on my iPod, too.

I can't explain why your phone wouldn't be doing the same thing.

As for burning DVDs...I have no idea what you mean. I have no access to the pictures manually. I don't know if you understood that.

I thought just the screen was broken. I suggested plugging someone else's monitor into the laptop and using it (temporarily) that way.

Was I wrong, and there's something else wrong with it too?

 

[christy333]

I'm not sure what to tell you. On my phone, I have 3,984 photos and it's taking up 2.5 GB of space on the phone.

That works out to rougly 650 KB per photo, on average. On my computer, all my photos are between 2 - 3 MB each. So it appears that the file size is being compressed down to more than half-sized on my phone. That's how it used to work on my iPod, too.

I can't explain why your phone wouldn't be doing the same thing.




I thought just the screen was broken. I suggested plugging someone else's monitor into the laptop and using it (temporarily) that way.

Was I wrong, and there's something else wrong with it too?

My computer has since been replaced (see original post). I did have it hooked up to another monitor but I was in a pinch so I didn't have time to sit around burning DVDs. I teach and am a grad student so my computer contains my life. I wanted to take it in that night, so I used flash drives to transport as much as I could to other computers in the house. =\